You say it all like it's such a bad thing. And yeah, as a trend, nostalgia borders both the insipid and easy. But otherwise, like on an individual basis, nostalgia just takes the form of any other kind of list (even a list of one) - it is a category exercise reacting to the chaos of a post-human world. When too much information (or a misreading thereof) renders one's culture nonsensical, lists are a way to construct a logic. Okay, maybe it is just insipid and easy - who remembers Dr Fad?

I think the increasingly fast pace of technological change and the insecurity it causes creates the drive for nostalgia - combined with vast libraries of historical imagery being made available to artists and taste-makers.

Something similar happened in the victorian era - rapid industrialization, combined with the advent of effective color printing and compendiums of antique patterns/motifs being disseminated.

Yeah, totally not like old men who talk about how they wish it were the 60s again, before all those punk kids started walking on their lawn and when times were simpler and better and you could go downtown, see a talkie and get a coke and a hot dog all for a grand total of a nickel. It's not like it's a generational behavior trend or anything, no way.

@fearcondom ha, you make it sound like i'm some weirdo suffering from an unresolved childhood complex. this was inspired by a nostalgia thread @ http://www.digitalgangster.com/4um/showthread.php?t=128119

there's nothing wrong with getting a little nostalgic here and there ;p

it's not a matter of remembering something being better than it was, it's a matter of your tastes and likes/dislikes changing over time so when you actually go back and watch old episodes of Pete and Pete and don't enjoy it anymore, it's not because you remembered it being better than it actually was or is, it is because you're an adult now and have adult tastes.

and being a kid didn't suck, it was great because life was so much simpler and you had no real problems or obligations, which is probably why we look back upon all these things so fondly. we associate the freedom and carefree attitude of childhood with those things.

that beings said, nobody ought to wish to remain a child forever, because as you grow and mature you realize that childish things are just that: childish things. still, that's no reason not to look back upon childhood fondly.

but to actually wish to go back to it, that seems more like regret than nostalgia.

Thing is, the 80s and 90s were great decades to be a kid, because that was when cartoons and kids' shows were creative and of good quality and didn't encourage kids to be sluts, and games were simple enough for everyone to understand, with little controversy over violence.

The cartoons were generally asian-animated low quality crud. The games were simple because there wasn't enough drive space to make them complicated. When graphics advanced to a point where "violence" could be depicted, the developers made violent games. Mortal Kombat came out in 1992, I remember when it the game's violence was a featured story in Newsweek.

I think the late 80's and 90's were a good time to be a kid because that era would seem to be the little fun period between international communism coming to a close and the darkness of 9/11. For the older gen-x types it was ironic and boring, but for kids I remember it seeming to be optimistic.

It is interesting to see the betrayal of the 90's nostalgia with the backdrop. Victorian and baroque damask is a popular nostalgic trope of the current era (frequently employed by modern graphic designers without anything original to say and a pressing deadline)

the 90s were our plateau... nothing revolutionary has happened since then, so why not throw the nostalgia around? what else is there since then? especially since impressionable young minds from that period are now coming into power and starting to dictate what will be nostalgic for the next generation... look at yo gabba gabba for reference...

I identified, played, or watched 90% of everything shown here. I would go back if I could to be honest, for the era that I grew up in, with the Cold War coming to a close, and the economic robustness experienced in the 90s was truly a wondrous time. It came to a screeching halt around 1999-2000. Even before I was around, starting in the earlier 80s, it was still a good time to be alive. Politics and change as it is, removed the stability that I and others had grown very accustomed to - that and the cancellation of many of the good shows, replacing them with more crap.

Oh well, nostalgia is a strong and stirring emotion, and many people are uncomfortable with it, because of its nature, sometimes a yearning to go back and live life as you idealize it to have been... but every once and a while, it's a sharper feeling when you know that what used to be was truly special, and good.

Old people get nostalgic, which is true. But I missed the 90's since the early 2000's, when I literally just got into high school. I sensed my generation got nostalgic at a extremely early age. Hell, my younger brother is 18 and he misses the 90's and he was still a kid when they ended.

No one really missed the 80's till the 2000's. 90's were being missed since the 2000's start. (Proof is just how quick I love the 90's came out and trivial pursuit 90's edition came out right around we went into Iraq in 2003) 2000's has been one problem after another, from the controversy of the Election, 9/11, being stuck in Afghanistan and Iraq, enormous natural disasters including Katrina and the worst economic crash since the depressing. Then you have technology penetrating every aspect of our lives possible, there really is no existing safe havens left.

We now have a massive Oil spill and the recent coal mine accident. A President who has not lived up to almost any hype that was built around him(at least yet.) And it doesn't help morale when popular cultural icons seem to be dieing left and right.

I bet people in the 30's and early 40's were quick to start missing the 20's. Sure, booze were tougher to get legally and you had the gangsters (which organized crime actually gave the 20's the lowest violent crime rate in American history. Since the Gangs only aimed for cops and each other. They wanted public favor on their side.) But it was great time to live compare to the coming disasters that would happen in the next decade and half.